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I've no knowledge of literacy teaching in Great Britain. Perhaps it's the case that Wales and Scotland learned that constant testing (when did they ever have time to actually learn to read and write if all they ever did was test?) doesn't get the job done, but by what other metric are we to measure the success of a program, if not testing?

Here in the US, the teachers unions hold an absolute death grip on all things educational K-12 (5- 18-year-olds). While this may be temporarily loosened locally and occasionally statewide where fed-up voters enact some sort of testing regime, eventually the concentrated interest (teachers/unions) are able by pouring millions of dollars into the effort and through their control where the rubber meets the road, get such programs rescinded.

It's happened in my state. We had a statewide testing system wherein students in 3rd, 5th, 8th and 11th grades (ages 9, 11, 13, 17) were tested in those years to see whether the schools were doing their job. The teachers and the unions fought this tooth and nail, but citizens voted for it overwhelmingly. The first couple of years, it was obvious the schools had been teaching virtually nothing (big surprise). For a few years after that grades went upward satisfactorily, then leveled off, eliciting the usual bellowed excuses by the teachers: the test is flawed! It's culturally/racially biased! Parents aren't involved enough! Kids come to school hungry! Etc., etc., etc. Now, with the leftists back in our state's governor's office and controlling the legislature, the testing is of course going away.

Likewise, with the leftists largely in control of the US Congress, and soon to take control at the White House, America's nationwide quality-control effort in the public schools, the No Child Left Behind Act, is also going away. The complaint by the teachers and the union is that NCLB is not perfect therefore, it should be done away with. What went before was clearly perfect . . . for the teachers and their unions.

Too bad, in the teachers' and the unions' view, if American high school graduates test out below most 3rd world nations in most core subjects. The American public schools, after all, are a jobs program for union members, not a place where parents can expect nor certainly demand that their kids are educated. Why should we expect the schools and the teachers to be held accountable and their performance fairly judged by testing what students have learned, and demanding improvement where it's warranted? How will that help union teachers?

Testing "all the time" is of course counter-productive and you don't need a doctorate in "Education" or to have been a headmaster even in a British school to figure that one out. But is it entirely unreasonable for parents and taxpapyers-the customers of schools, believe it or not!-to expect the schools to well, actually educate children? Parents and other taxpayers sometimes simply get fed-up with the lack of education and often grasp at any straw.

I don't think a reasonable amount of testing is too much to ask, but in America (and judging from the other contribution here, Britain, too) teachers believe it is because too often what it shows more than what a child is learning is what a teacher is not teaching.

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